Eternal by Pati Nagle Read Free Book Online Page B

you come stay with us for the summer?” Len said, helping herself to bread. “It would save you some money on the room.”
    â€œ I’m not a mooch.”
    â€œ Then buy some groceries. What do you say?”
    It was tempting. I loved their house, and they did have a spare room. Len used it for an office, but there was a bed in there and it was a lot nicer than my dorm room. I’d crashed there on New Year’s Eve.
    â€œ You’re changing the subject,” I said.
    She sighed. “We’re worried about you, Man.”
    â€œ I’m fine.”
    â€œ No, you’re not. You’re mad, and confused, and stressed-out. I’m sorry. The truth is…”
    â€œ There are some things you can’t tell me. Yeah, I’ve heard that. Why not?”
    â€œ You would not believe us, for one thing,” Caeran said.
    â€œ Try me.”
    I stared straight at him. I hadn’t ever been that rude to Caeran before, but Len was right. I was frustrated as hell.
    Caeran stared back, his eyes cold. I’d never seen him like this. He reminded me of his cousins with the names I couldn’t remember, of the way they had looked at me like I was a gnat.
    â€œ How old do you think I am?” he said.
    â€œ Caeran, don’t—”
    He raised a hand and Len shut up. I saw her swallow before she looked down.
    â€œ Trick question?” I asked.
    â€œ No.”
    â€œ I dunno…twenty-five?”
    â€œ Older.”
    â€œ Twenty-nine.”
    â€œ Older.”
    I didn’t like this game. “Fifty,” I said sarcastically.
    The waiter was coming with our appetizer. Caeran’s eyes narrowed and he lowered his voice to a murmur.
    â€œ Older.”
    The waiter arranged the plate in the middle of the table and said something cheery. Len answered and he went away.
    Caeran was still watching me. No sign of joking in his face.
    I leaned toward him. “Bullshit.”
    Something flickered in his eyes and I was suddenly afraid. I had never, ever felt afraid of Caeran before.
    â€œ I was born in what you call the fourth century,” he said.
    Len gave a little sigh and dipped a piece of bread in the fondue. I didn’t know whether to yell or get up and leave. She could have at least defended me.
    â€œ You don’t believe me,” Caeran said.
    â€œ Give me a break.”
    He shrugged. “I cannot explain if you refuse to accept ideas that are outside of your comfortable beliefs.”
    â€œ Fine. You’re sixteen hundred years old. You don’t look a day over fifteen hundred.”
    â€œ The person you saw at the blood center is probably older than I.”
    I didn’t have a snappy comeback for that. I grabbed a piece of bread and swirled it around in the fondue.
    â€œ He—or she, it may very well be a female—is not human. Neither am I.”
    I looked at Len, wondering when she was going to tell him to quit. She just smiled and gave a little apologetic shrug.
    â€œ OK,” I said, “setting aside that you’re a Vulcan, how do you know that creep is one too?”
    â€œ Because we know the way the alben hunt. That student—” he gestured toward the newspaper “—died at the hand of an alben. My kindred and I were trying to find her, but it will be a few days now.”
    I swallowed a bite of fondue. “Oh? Why?”
    â€œ Because she is sated.”
    I stared at him, trying to work out some way that could mean something other than what it sounded like. “Sated?”
    â€œ The alben hunt for food.”
    â€œ That guy wasn’t eaten.”
    â€œ No,” Caeran said with the air of a parent patiently talking to a kid. “He bled to death.”
    Meaning the alben or whatever had drunk the blood. “But the article says the ground where he was found was steeped in blood.”
    â€œ Yes. How many pints of blood are in the human body?”
    Dammit. They’d just